Week 9

 Assignment 1:

I read the Chicago Tribune and New York Times articles and watched the embedded book trailers.  So-So impact…

Assignment 2:

The comment in the CT article rings very true: because reading is an act of personal visual imagination, it’s impossible to “show” a scene from the book, similar to a movie trailer, without probably repelling the very readers it is meant to entice.  I see two current audiences for book trailers: ardent readers who search out videos of their favorite authors to feel a further connection, and teen readers, for whom book trailers are a routine way to discover new material to read—as the NYT article points out so convincingly.  In the first case, the Corporate Marketing Machine has a new tool to create word of mouth; a compelling corollary would be to have a bestselling author “blurb” a lesser-known author’s work.  In the second case, a new generation is growing up with a new art form/advertising angle.  It’s going to be a very interesting twenty years for publishing, and the book trailer can only increase its impact—once publishers figure out how to best exploit them for profit. 

Re: readers’ advisory?  It would be fun to point out the existence of book trailers to avid readers who are unaware of them.  In their current incarnations, however, I don’t see book trailers being of much practical use for readers. 

Assignment 3:

This was an extremely well-planned and presented training opportunity.  The segments were cohesive and challenging.  I liked seeing how colleagues progressed and seeing their comments—it made it almost interactive, beyond the two instances of being required to comment on another’s blog posts.  I’ve learned a lot about electronic resources that I was unaware of before, and I am certain that I will continue to use segments of this training in the years to come.

 

(Whew!!)